I’m feeling a bit crook tonight. I’m tired, my muscles ache, and I’m just feeling not 100%.

It was a busy day at work, with barely a moment to scratch myself, in the midst of some very worthwhile meetings.

And I mean that seriously. When it comes to meetings I’m a firm believer in having an agenda, a clear allocation of time, and a summation at the end involving an action plan. I loathe meetings which are organised through Outlook (half-hour, an hour, two hours) without any clear sense of purpose. The phrase “we should catch up to talk about” implies for me someone who doesn’t have enough things in their diary, whereas I’m quite busy all of the time.

In the midst of it all, I had some fun, as I was asked to appear on the ABC Hobart Afternoon Show to talk about the influence of Scandinavian pop music.

Apparently if you search for such words using Google, you find me… I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.

Anyway, here’s the spot I did on ABC Hobart with Libbi Gorr…

My central thesis was there are many musical traditions, there’s a good reason why “voting blocks” occur in Eurovision (“cultural similarties” is my argument), and that Swedish pop influence goes back a long way, even before ABBA, and relates to their open-ness as a people. The only thing I forgot to mention was more recent additions to Scandinavian pop culture, including Robyn.